Really good but reaaalllllyyy long

Mariposa Road:
The First Butterfly Big Year
by Robert Michael Pyle

Giving up on this, a little more than halfway through. It's a 558 page book describing a day-by-day journal of the author's yearlong travels to see all the butterfly species in the United States.  Well, no--not all the species. There are close to 800 identified species in the country, and he set himself a goal to see 500 of them.

He came close but I won't say how close for fear of spoiling it for you. It's a good book and I recommend it highly, but after nearly three hundred pages I began to find that I picked it up with increasing reluctance and put it down with immense relief. It was good, but just too much for me.

Wow. Repetitive but, wow

A Season on the Wind:
Inside the World of Spring Migration

Kenn Kaufman has become quite a nature writer. I adored his "cult classic" Kingbird Highway but it was a personal story about his birding big year. This is a whole another animal.

[watching the Geminid meteor showers]

In the sharp, cold air the stars crackled with brilliance, and we stood in silence, gazing upward. Once every few minutes a glowing meteor would blaze across the sky, and we would squeeze each other's hands and keep watching. And then somewhere out in the fields the coyotes started singing. We sensed that they were also watching the sky; their cries had a pensive, solemn tone, as if they had become the voices of the lost wilderness, the voices of Earth. Unseen in the dark they went on and on, with yips, keening howls, mournful wails, an elegy to the sky, calling down the falling stars.

And read his description of the courtship display of the pectoral sandpiper:

Standing atop a high hummock, a male makes growling, squawking, coughing sounds, then puffs his body to a ridiculous degree by inflating special air sacs under the feathers of his throat and chest. Launching into the air, he flies with slow, deep, exaggerated wingbeats, looking like a blobby brown balloon, making a series of low, throbbing hoots: doob doob doob...The whole thing is bizarre and more than a little comical. So graceful and strong in normal fight, the pectoral sandpiper transforms himself into a dorky showoff in courtship.

But of course none of this is what the book is about. If you think you know anything about bird migration, think again. There's a lot more to it than "birds fly south for the winter."

Some fly a little south, to the southern U.S.; some fly all the way to southern South America. Some species that you see year round actually do migrate a little, you just don't notice it. When I lived in Kentucky I thought the robins went south for the winter--until I encountered a flock of them skulking around in the woods. And if you think there are invisible "flyways" the birds migrate along...nope. Some ducks stick to well established routes, but they're just as likely to be west to east, northeast to south, and crisscrossing all over. Hawks migrate in the daytime when they can float on the thermals; they dislike crossing the dead-air of big lakes. Some birds migrate in flocks but many more go singly. Little songbirds migrate at night and are just as likely to shoot across the gulf of Mexico as not, coming down on the other side with most of their excess fat storage spent.

There are places where migrating birds seem to congregate but they're mostly accidents of geography. Kenn Kaufman has located himself in a prime spot--on the south shore of lake Erie. It's a region he has made famous as a spring migration stop-off for warblers and other long-distance migrants. When they arrive at Lake Erie at daybreak, they have to make a choice whether to go on across the water or stop off for a day to eat and regain energy.  Apparently a lot of them stop to take a break--in April, it's a miraculous place for bird watchers. And--as he explains many times--a terrible location for wind turbines.

We didn't use t know that many songbirds migrate at night, nor did we realize just how many of them there were. Picture a large cloud of birds moving north in the dark, and remember--most diurnal birds can't see any better in the dark than we can. They can see the stars overhead and the lights below, but not an invisible blade of deadly whirr right in front of their eyes.

Decent plot but dragging detection

Staging is Murder

I so very much wanted to love this book. It had everything--antiques, old houses, loving friends, and a mystery that was easy to understand, complicated to ferry out. And a heroine who wasn't afraid to use unusual household objects as weapons in a pinch.

But the story dragged, dragged, dragged. At times I thought she was writing for an audience of five-year-olds. And the heroine, a supposed lover of mystery novels, was so very very clueless. She agonized for pages over how to get started--when she had the murder location and the personal property of the murder victim right under her fingertips and at her sole control. Duh!  How about, uh...searching the house, stupid?

Part of my problem was the audiobook format. Now that the reader did anything wrong, at all. She was great. But her problem was that she had to read every word--and there were way too many words.  She (the heroine) agonized over every little detail...except the ones which were so very obviously important.

And for crying out loud, when you get hold of an important document that clearly holds a clue to the mystery, you don't simply make a couple of copies, hide them, and email one to yourself! You already suspect that the murderer is out to get you, so if you happen to be next, couldn't you leave one somewhere for the police to find?  If you can make two copies, why not five?  Or why not mail one to yourself...or the police?

So as you see, I disliked/liked this book and it clearly made me scream. Still, I'm thinking I might risk a paper copy of a sequel. But no more audio.

Great history; not so mystery

The Gown:
A Novel of the Royal Wedding
by Jennifer Robson

Absolutely great! Assuming you're a person with respect for handicrafts, a passion for history and enormous nosiness (call it curiosity) about people's lives, you are sure to love this. Yes, the "mystery" was pretty obvious--you'll guess it from the beginning--but the adventure of uncovering it was a pleasure.

I won't recap the plot; you can read the book cover. But I will only say that the author took three different women and made them all into voices you wanted to hear and stories you wanted to know. The narrator of the audiobook helped a lot with that--cheers go to Marisa Calin--you rock! But I suspect that even if I'd read the words on paper I'd have adored this book.

Gorgeous coffee table fare

The Jemima Code
by Toni Tipton-Martin

I'm going to have to rate this as a did-not-finish. It's a gorgeous book, expertly written and seriously researched. My only issue is that it's "too much" to read straight through. As a reference work or a coffee table book, it's perfect.

The other reason I gave up was that in the interest of quantity--was it really necessary to review every single Soul Food title of the sixties and seventies?--they sacrificed on quality.  Each cookbook had barely enough content to keep me reading for a minute, and then it was on to the next book.

No complaints--nothing but applause!  But don't try to read it like a novel--treasure it as a glory of facts and history and honor for the writers of all those cookbooks.

Missed a good one

We Were the Lucky Ones
by Georgia Hunter

I lost the review I wrote on this. But I am not qualified to post it anyway, because I stopped reading halfway through. It's written in chapters alternating between the different members of the family--the parents, the son who escapes to Argentina, two young husband-wife couples, and another daughter. Possibly I've missed one of these--don't quote me.

I've read so much about the war and concentration camps and suffering of Jewish people under the Nazis, I couldn't get up the appetite for reading more. Plus, I didn't realize this was a true story, so I kept thinking these were a fiction author's trumped up tales--which wasn't true at all. My mistake and my loss--when I realized it was due back at the library, I picked out the most interesting story line about the husband and wife who pretend to be gentiles and end up in a Siberian detainment camp-- imagine having to melt the ice off your child's eyelashes each morning so he can open his eyes? It turned out to be such a thrilling story I wish I'd read the rest.

So, no rating but I give the book a thumbs up.

Animal romp in the not wilds

The Urban Bestiary
by  Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Amusing and lovely tales of the animals and birds that live with us in our cities and suburbs; often told tongue-in-cheek: the four reasons why we hate rat tails. We do hate them, and there are reasons for it, and when you read this you'll understand why.

This turned out to be a a mixture of personal observations, science, history and even an occasional folktale. Delightful. On house sparrows gathering nesting materials in her chicken coop:

Finally, one male house sparrow selected the very biggest and longest--a primary wing feather. Such a prize! The feather was longer than he was but weighed nothing; he picked it up horizontally in his  bill and attempted to make off with it, flying straight into the hogwire fence. Hogwire is characterized by vertical wire rectangles, two by four inches each, a good sparrow-sized opening but not a sparrow-with-long-feather-size opening. I was stunned to observe what happened next: the sparrow dropped to the ground, put his feather down, walked through the fence, then reached his head in, grabbed the tip of the feather, and pulled it through. This was problem-solving, the sort of thing we expect from primates and maybe the higher avian orders, such as corvids and parrots. Certainly not from a plain, hated little sparrow.

From Brian, a fish and wildlife officer:

If you move to bear country, there will be bears. If you don't want them to raid your birdfeeder, then take it down. If you don't want them to get into your garbage, then chain it up. Brian gets frequent callbacks:
"I did what you said, I put a bungee cord on the can, and bears still got into it."
"Bungee cord? You need a chain with a lock. It's a bear."
"But I--"
"It's a bear."

On a recent trip to the Texas hill country, I cringed to see all the Future Home Of... signs on narrow roads in the undeveloped wilderness. How many car-deer collisions will it take before the deer are driven away? How many raccoons will be relocated or shot because the new homeowners get their garage can dumped out on the ground? How many foxes will survive after people strew rat poison inside their garages?

I wish they would all read a copy of this book. Understanding the wild creatures might lead to tolerance, to co-existence. When I first moved to the suburbs I had the delightful experience of cleaning up all of the contents of my garbage can spilled in the street, but I learned to keep the garbage cans in the garage until trash day.  I learned to keep the bird seed in rat-proof metal bins. And when a barred owl dive-bombs your head during a morning jog, look around to see where its nest might be--and take a detour next time. Let the critters live--or go back to your condo in Houston. Please.

Run on in many delightful ways

Jog On:
How Running Saved My Life
by Bella Mackie

Hard to believe any editor would have allowed so many run-on paragraphs. She just starts unloading her personal experience and on it goes and on it goes...like jogging. Jog On! But--strange as it may seem--it was good. You might have to insert your own paragraph breaks from time to time, but the adventure never lagged.

I highly recommend this book to aspiring runners or persons fighting anxiety. It was very encouraging to me, too. While I've never experienced the kind of public panic attack she was sometimes hit with, even I have had moments where I just want to curl up in a ball and shake. My moments always have a cause; hers were somewhat random and debilitating.

With a little anti-anxiety medication and a whole lot of jogging, she came through. Her writing is personal and honest, and you don't come off thinking of her as some impossibly competent recovered addict who now sits on top of the world, benevolently smiling on the lesser beings. Not at all! She's like a real friend who struggles through the days just like we do...until time to go jogging.

Last Day at Canyon Lake

I have no notes about the trip back. I remember it was mostly painless.

Bird summary: Osprey (at least two), Bald Eagle (2), Belted Kingfisher, Yellow-rumped warbler, mockingbirds all over, bluebird, turkey and black vultures, Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Cormorant sp., big flocks of something migrating south, and a bunch of unidentifiable sparrows.

NOTES:
1. Don't trust supermarket packaging of corn meal--or anything else that's prone to impact-driven, disastrous explosions.
2. Take a walk every day no matter what.
3. When we don't have the boat, be sure to schedule side-trips so we don't end up sitting around and being bored. Ed really enjoyed the eating out and shopping in San Antonio. I did too, but would have been equally happy bird watching.

Sunday at Canyon Lake

It had been an atypical trip so far, but then, that was the idea. It wasn't planned to be a camping trip but rather a visiting old friends trip. And it was working as planned, until last night when I couldn't go to sleep because I hadn't had any exercise but was mentally exhausted from driving and shopping and hanging out with people I didn't know very well. None of my favorite things.

Sunday should be better. The only things on the agenda were fishing at the crappie dock and a long, bird-watching walk. Maybe two. Maybe I would get a good picture of that little falcon.

Later: it was better. The best! We went down fishing in the morning, after sleeping late and getting a good breakfast. Except I exploded my egg in the microwave.

At the dock, since I wasn't getting any bites, I started watching birds and what a watching there was! I'd seen a flurry of sparrows earlier and decided they were song sparrows, but there was one with a white eye-ring that escaped me. Then a pair of osprey I watched for a while. I absolutely adore osprey.  And to think that when I was a kid in the 1970s I might have never had a chance to see one! (They were one of the worst victims of the DDT/eggshell thinning of the 1960s.) But now I've seen lots!

After they sailed away, a pair of bald eagles came a-circling.  They're truly magnificent.  On top of all that excitement, the bushes were full of little birds--mockingbirds and Carolina wrens, of course, but tons of sparrows and some small-beaked bird that worked the low scrub in the rocks by the water. He looked like a kinglet, but larger?  And a yellow-rumped warbler or twenty for sure.

When I finally remembered to check my phone, I found I'd missed a call from Norman and one from Theresa. She and Bob were ready to come visit, if we wished. And we did!  After that some people came down to the fishing dock to chat. Nice folk--they'd traveled all over the states The guy originated in Texas and the lady in Oregon. They appeared to divide their time between the two places and many more in between.

While I was chatting I heard the rattle of a kingfisher! Soon I spied him...he found a perch on the branches of trees by the water and stuck to it...for like...forever.  He just didn't move, so I could never get a good look at his markings. He seemed small enough to be a green kingfisher...but was probably just the same belted (blue) kingfishers I've seen all my life. In all the time I watched him, and tried to photograph him, he didn't move.  So I'll never know for sure.

Theresa and I had a delicious walk out the peninsula to the boat ramp, where we found Bob still putting his kayak in. He'd misplaced his seat during the move and was still getting his gear together, so it took him longer than usual.  We continued our walk to the end of the peninsula, through the tent camping area (closed for the season) and back to the RV. There we ate grapes and chatted, and by the time we walked down to see if Ed was nearing shutting down his fishing, the sun was starting to droop.

We helped Ed pack up and haul the wagon up the hill, then quick-stepped over to the boat ramp. Bob had already come up but we were able to ate least help him lift the kayak onto the truck and over. Izzy and I accepted a ride in their truck back to the campsite--what a wimp!  But for the day, I'd gotten in a good bit of walking.

By the way, on our walk I saw one of the little falcons again and it was definitely a Kestrel. So probably no Merlin this trip. No matter.

Odd for a Sunday, but that night, the campsite was filling up!  Mostly older people--I saw only one kid and pretty much nobody who looked younger than us. Bob's suggestion was that they might be coming in for the Wurst-fest, or some such thing, going on in nearby New Braunfels that week.

Saturday at Canyon Lake

During the last hour or so of our night, I'd mentioned my plan to blow off the Mi Tierra breakfast + shopping excursion and just take a long walk instead. BUt it appears Ed didn't hear me--or maybe I didn't say it out loud--and when he asked about our schedule in the morning I was surprised. He'd actually been looking forward to the shopping. So with one vote "yes" and one vote "okay", we did it.

Traffic going down 281 was stop-and-go for a long time--the main road was under construction, so all traffic was routed onto the feeder with many stoplights. But eventually traffic picked up and became the sort of big city downtown driving that I despise. Too many lanes, too many exits, too many idiots driving too very fast, and no time to make the slightest mistake before you missed your exit and were miles away in minutes. Groan.

On the other hand, with a modern phone navigation you don't have to despair like I did that one time when I missed getting on I-45 south to Houston and ended up in downtown Dallas with no idea where I was or how to get back onto the tangled mess of highways just above my head.  That was one of the more miserable trips of my life.  But these days you need not worry--just let the phone reroute itself and you soon get a second chance. Or a third. Luckily, I only needed a second one.

I'd not planned where to park, though. I passed up what was probably free parking under the highway and was heading along streets crowded with pedestrians before I realized how close I was. Luckily a $5 lot appeared in front of me and I whipped inside. I'm not going to argue with a five-dollar parking fee when a Mi Tierra's breakfast is wafting through the air.

The wait was only ten minutes and the service was fast.  The menu seemed much smaller than I remember, but this was Saturday morning at eleven o'clock and they were serving more lunch than they were breakfast. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a breakfast-only menu we'd eaten off before...aha. They do. I didn't see pancakes on the menu at all, else I would have ordered some.  (Turns out they probably were there; I just missed them in my hunger.)


No matter--I pigged out on warm, fluffy flour tortillas instead. Plus machacado and fried potatoes, which I love.  I could eat fried potatoes for breakfast every day and not get tired of them.






Then we shopped around in El Mercado and surrounding shops until our time ran out. We needed to return to our poor puppies in time to give them a walk and give ourselves showers before heading to Bob & T's cookout.


On the way back my phone navigated us by a different route, avoiding 281 altogether. I liked that, and if I just knew where it had taken us, I'd make a note to always go that way. There were a lot more curvy, two-lane roads but no traffic light stop-and-go freeway feeders.

We took the dogs to Bob and Theresa's house and found the people all sitting out in the driveway talking. Their deck is still just a frame of wood, but it's going to be gorgeous some day. Zack got to roam around with the other dogs, but Izzy was best stowed in the back seat. I'm sorry for her, but I expect it was better than being in the RV all alone. At least she could see us from the back seat.

"The people" consisted of just Amy and Kelsey, Chris and Mary Rose. Good folk for a cookout. We didn't stay too late, of course. For future reference--COE parks--or at least this COE park--close their gates at ten p.m. and don't have a key code. If you get locked outside, you park outside and walk to your campsite.

Second Day at Canyon Lake

Plan: long walk with dogs. Actual: meeting up with Bob & T at the Guadalupe Trail for a short hike along the "undeveloped side" of the river. I don't think it was the real Guadalupe Trail but rather just a nature hike near the dam. It was pretty, with lots of ups and downs, but the view was simply the backyards of the million-dollar homes across the river. I wouldn't bother with it another time.

My dog Izzy got all overprotective and bit at theirs. Not pleasant at all, but no damage was done and they took it in good stride.



Canyon Lake from the dam overlook

Ed and I had concocted the idea of eating some Tex-Mex in San Antonio. So before the walk, I checked and rejected a series of restaurants on my phone. When I finally found one that seemed good, I proposed it and they were happy to oblige us. So we went back to Mammoth and grabbed a change of clothes, then followed them to their brand-new house to take showers in their brand new guest bathroom. It was nice.


(And here I'd intended to write a long complaint about urban sprawl and the huge mess people are making in the lovely Texas scrub of the hill country. I won't. All I'll say is that it's a real shame Texas didn't set aside a handful of ten-thousand acre parks in the Hill Country and dedicated them for wildlife conservation. Because in ten years, it will all be houses. The beauty and wildlife that drew people to move there in the first place will be gone forever.)

We toured their lovely house and showered in their brand new facilities, then Bob graciously drove us to La Hacienda de los Barrios.



It proved to be large, busy (but no wait), and with a great Tex-Mex menu that freely mixed old traditionals with trendier new dishes. They had at least four vegetarian entrees, right there on the menu--no alterations necessary.

I'd considered eating cabrito for a non-CAFO meat option, but it was listed as "Market Price," which is never a good sign.  Some other time.

Everyone was pleased with their food but I was sadly disappointed in mine. I hadn't eaten enchiladas in so long, so I chose that.  But they were flavorless and sprinkled with cheese; the fillings weren't tasty enough to make up for eating all that cheese that added calories and milk fat but no flavor.  On the other hand, the bowl of beans was excellent!  If I ever go back, I might order nothing but beans.

Back at their house, we hung around for just a few minutes before heading back to Mammoth for bed. Traffic on those little roads is horrendous, but at least I didn't have to dodge a deer.

Mammoth goes south for Halloween

(Thu October 31 2019)
Crane's Mill Park on Canyon Lake Texas
Sam Rayburn Tollway South; Texas 121 TEXpress/Texas 183 TEXpress, I-820 W,  Chisolm Trail parkway south; US 67 South; 220 West; US-281 South; some little roads over to the park.67 to 281. 311 south. 3159 east/north. 2673 north/west.
1. Planned distance: 325 miles
2. Map time estimate: 5:35
3. Adjusted estimate: didn't calculate
4. Actual distance: 320 miles which makes no sense--are our tires mis-sized?
5. Actual time:  5:58 (excluded 20 minutes stops)
6. Gas stop in Fort Worth and pee stop at "picnic" area on 281
7. Average mph trip: unknown

Really late start (12:16). None of the prep work (backing up the boat to get it out of the way of the RV, for example) had been done the day before. It's true it had been raining and wet in the previous morning, but work could have been done in the afternoon.  When we finally got started loading the car onto the tow dolly, more problems arose. First the car overshot the dolly and required major engineering to get loose. Then it kept coming up the ramp off-center and missing the very narrow wheel spaces.

So we didn't leave until after noon for what was supposed to be a five-and-one-half hour drive.  The actual numbers are shown above.

But it wasn't such a bad trip. Sunny and cool but not so cool that we were miserable in the front seats. Mammoth's heater doesn't work too well--the air it blows is warm, not hot, and it has to be blowing right on you to feel it.

Barreling down the eternally congested I-35 was out of the question, so I routed us on the I-820 loop around Fort Worth.  We were able to get on the express lanes for SH-121/820 and stay on them, all around the messy part.  Except we needed gas. Obviously, you can't get gas on an Express Lane, so Ed just gripped the steering wheel harder and I frantically searched for truck stops on my phone. But my phone's "search along route" feature wouldn't go far enough out and it only showed gas stations at the next couple of stops for our route. I located found a Racetrack station just off to the left at a nearby stop, and we went there. Luckily it was one of the new ones, with diesel, and we were able to refill easily on an outside lane. Whew.

Of course as soon as we got back on 820, truck stops jumped up all over the place.


The drive was pleasant, but went through all the little towns--Glen Rose, Marble Falls, ...with all their little traffic lights. But the road, especially TX-181, had shoulders and passing lanes every few miles. And there wasn't much traffic.

I tried to take some pictures of the impressive scenery when we approached the hill country, but all I captured were hills.

The only real issue we encountered was the setting sun, in particular, how fast it appeared to be setting.  We were hoping to arrive in order to finish out hookups without a flashlight.  Amazingly we made it--6:33 and still light. After a quick exchange to the very nice lady at the entrance, we were soon on our way to a waterfront site at a campground that was more than three-quarters empty.

But not before nearly hitting a deer. He darted out from a bar near the park, got in the road in front of us, and hesitated. Ed hit the brakes pretty hard and so did the oncoming car. The deer survived, but the box of cornmeal in our pantry did not. It hit the floor and exploded .

It was large, level, and clean, like all of the Texas Corp of Engineers parks we've camped at. So far. No wood knocking needed. Our only complaint was the same as we've had for the others--too open.  They'd left a few trees but not nearly as many as they might have, so all of the spaces were wide-open to all the others. It wasn't objectionable...yet if we'd taken a site away from the water, our picnic table would have no privacy from any side. As it was only our nearest neighbor overlooked us and we didn't see much of him or his family outside.

It was a chilly night but the space heater kept us cozily warm. Supper; dog walking; bed; sleep. Aaahhhhh.

Not the adventure story I expected

Only Pack What You Can Carry
by Janice Holly Booth

I hadn't fully expected an instruction manual on How to Live Life, but it wasn't a bad one. The title is telling you not to carry around a lot of baggage that prevents you from achieving your dreams, but the bulk of the text tells you how to do stuff--not how not to carry stuff.

There are many examples from her life, but they''re episodes all meant to tell a story. It starts off like a memoir, and I'd hoped for one, but it quickly becomes an instruction manual and I wasn't all that disappointed.

It's full of quotable quotes. I'll give only one and hope I don't ruin the impact by quoting out of context and without all of the life lessons that make it real.

If the price of doing what you love is that you might die doing it, what is the price of not chasing your dreams or fulfilling your potential? The cost is an interior death, where your dreams, ideas, hopes and schemes wither away, leaving a hollow core to be filled with superficial distractions...

Cook and learn--splendid!

Take Big Bites
by Linda Ellerby


Early into this book I wrote a very mean review of what appeared to be "just about the worst recipe for chili I've ever seen." I was--and still am--tempted to try the recipe just to prove how hideous it would be. But instead I'll just mention that whoever wrote it down didn't have to wash their own pans.

But I'm deleting all that. Who cares about a bad recipe or two in such a wonderful book?  I feel honored to have been allowed to read it.  Food was just a tiny bit of her masterful approach to wringing the spice out of life, so I can't blame or fault her for attempting to recreate some of the significant meals of her magnificent journey through life.  It wouldn't mean anything to me to try to cook them, but to her, it was clearly worth the writing of them.

This cooking woman has a brain, a conscience, strength, compassion, bravery and an occasional, self-embarrassing admission of weakness. The episodes of her life included here are no doubt a tiny subset of all the fun, cool, and totally misery-making things she has experienced.  Volunteering for a church mission to get a free ride to visit Latin America. Hopping across the border at Brownsville with a best friend to relive the memories of food and friendship in the days before Tex-Mex cooking lost its spice. Causing a riot in Turkey by giving out oranges to hungry kids. Outward Bound trip down the Colorado. Being pummeled by the largest naked woman she'd ever seen at a bath + massage somewhere. And more and more--I'm having trouble finding a representative sample of adventures to list. They're so diverse.

And best and last, her walk down the Thames at age sixty. That's an essay that will make you cry, yet still bring a little hope to the passage of time.

Okay cozy, but I want better. Try again.

A High-End Finish
by Kate Carlisle

I want to read the next one--I want to see if she can do it. The heroine was attacked on page 14 and then at least three other times in the course of the 311-page book. She's a gutsy broad, but can she sustain this pace without serious injury?

That aside, it's a pretty good mystery and some amusing twists on good-looking male characters who will doubtless ask the heroine out sooner or later. Or maybe she'll ask them; we will see. I can see the author is setting up for a long, spirited ride through romantic comedy--with a murder or two on the side.

If you're into police procedural or even amateur detective stories, this isn't for you. Evidence, fingerprints, and paper trails are not a feature here. But there's plenty of well drawn action and lively characters.